Epic Poem. Inner Voice Of Mark Birros.

With that invisibilty of age
I can fly my life like a kite !
Uninvited and unseen,
albescent, grey, you know what I mean,
( not the first flush of youth or strong,
the young forget that we were young, )
hold on to that, the string of that
to grip the meaning of it
as I grip the iron balustrade
along the miles of esplanade ;
think the century's wise men are ignored,
each lamp a light, a sage for each lamp.... ...

Drawn to the Sailor's Arms, her kegs
the weight of years upon the legs
for whispers round an inglenook
where galaxies are in the glass,
to swap a tale, another round,
a golden fleece, a crumpled map !
Or waft around for words, like smoke
along the butt - ends from the tar,
or vanish down into the draught
if Alan Watts is at the bar.... ...

Below, where gulls quarrel in kelp
no harbour there need shelter me,
no life - boat slip to cries for help
need bring my spirit to the lee -
I hear the past with all its murders,
the wind wail through the rusting girders
yet still am I, free to fly with you
who lean against the railings, too !... ...

The world may seem to come in bits -
let nonduality begin ?
Come celebrate your opposites
for all depends on loss to win !
Tribal culture in your face -
to win is everywhere you turn,
if God is losing all the time
then will we ever, ever learn ?... ...

'You'll win' he said, 'its in the bag',
out on the point
what can the mindless wind do
but wave the flag?
Missing the point forever
signalling our nascent spirit.

And the voice said
'raise your head when the night is cloudless
and tell me who you are subject to,
remember the truth of your own story
as your eyes take in the glory'.... ...

Full to be empty, empty to be full -
do you hear the paradox, do you feel the pull ?
I do not mean to be patronising,
have I asked you too soon ?
Do you see what I mean when you gaze at the moon,
when the full moon, lifeless is full of light ?... ...

I sit upon the lobster pots
that decorate the harbour wall,
if you come a little closer
you can see me in the hall,
if you do not hold the key-
Mrs keepings locks the door,
I'll be looking out to sea
after eight but not before.... ... ...

I am seen from the inside of the inside,
not the inside of the outside, mark you
not from what I look like or do
but what do I mean ?
Quite literally - 'when all is said and done'.
Not the illusion of grandeur
but the lila and maya -
the joy of divine play
and the grandeur of illusion.
The causal spirit, the cause of sense
and the cause of what is seen,
the cause of the unseen in between,
the concatenations - all that links to the whole-
it is you; your very soul;
the royal seer, looking through your eyes
that in abdication you conveniently forgot,
as I sit here on the throne of my brain
decked in the trappings of thought,
half sought, half caught
by what I already am.
I hear the noise of the world now
at the altar of my ear,
no longer that small voice within
the inside of the inside,
and if you hear it, dont misinterpret it
for it is like calling unto like,
it is you calling unto you to abdicate again.... ... ...

The absurdity of death, of nothing
as emptiness, as somewhere to go,
there is no dead end or double-bind
for it is nothing - to full to be empty
yet seen as empty - to full to be seen;
it is the mournful in the mourning dove
why else should we name it so?
The exquisite song of the nightingale
that calls outside to the inside,
to the inside that made it so.... ... ...

I walk a cliff - top wood -
a place to help me grow
as from the soil of my mind,
perhaps to change a troubled mood,
that 'path less travelled by' is good;
a spider's web, suspends the space
between two tall trees
that seem to transcend their roots,
in cycles to the light they climb
nourished by the stream of time;
and in the dew, drips something new
where fungi sprout their magic
as poems do:
The wood responds to what I feel -
the hawk above, the vole below
would have the spider catch the fly !
Would have the earth catch the sun
which is a star, milking it's inside,
so too, it's inside is milking
the inside of the causal spirit.

The voice within has said to me
your archetype enfolds you
but within it's sacred keep
you sleepwalk through your world;
you huddle together with others in your darkness
and call it your religion,
give priests their priestly powers
letting them feed on your ignorance;
you must be in touch with your inside -
ultimate reality is 'your kingdom '
and that kingdom is always there
and never, never elsewhere;
in there you must be fearless -
have ' the courage to be '
as when ' christ the tiger came ',
a man who showed his day
a way, which is not the way now,
he foresaw his words would be surpassed
unless they were lived inwardly
and not outwardly emulated.
you must be like the wandering albatross
facing the skies and oceans of your own.
If you were raised by children
you will become a child
who must leap to adulthood
which is no - self acceptance and realisation,
the latter, denial not of that which is real
but of that which is unreal,
not as pulpit to the pew,
not as clergy say you do do you exist.
The wine is corked my friend !
The fog of centuries must clear,
so that that morning of divine splendour,
no longer hidden, may break through
as the bright morning sun,
so that Atman may be Atman
for then, all will have never occurred
and the Kingfisher will perch again
over a quiet a stream.... ... ...

From a high vantage point
let light, seeking out the shade
be every human contact made,
alienation is unkind -
we need to touch the braille of mind ;
what spirit intercedes unseen,
long suffering, a friend between
those lonely figures on the beach ?
Though tongue - tied they may long for speech.... ... ...

Mr Rush begrudges me
the weather and the time of day,
I wish I'd known him more, before
he had nothing else to say,
like a Lowry figure, blurred
elsewhere beckons him away,
time is running out for us
if he will not stop and say
'good morning Mr Birros !
How are you today '?

Out at sea the day descends,
a sail to lee, a journey ends
as sunlight glitters on the flood
from sky, the colour of the blood
as from the living fauna shed ;
a buzzard, circles overhead ;
a mill had caught the wind for bread
and dusk, like dawn was something said,
in whispers at the end of day,
as wisdom, nothing else to say
save rest a body for a night
or give a shepherd his delight,
or turn my spirit to the west
when I, reluctantly should go,
at evening, in the afterglow.

Without the memories of this world there is no persona ! -
Who am I ? I immediately ask them for an answer,
but I do not believe them anymore. Thus I am deceived
by the world from the cradle. Is it a divine game, I wonder
for paradoxically, I need to rediscover my true self
and that requires memory too. Memories of a different kind,
memories of peace, bliss though not oblivion, indescribable
colours, sights and sounds that are the very oxygen of the soul,
memory of love and being loved, but strangely enough, not
memory of words. In this context, words are absurd and as
dead as the persona ; present company reluctantly accepted
if you know what I mean !

' Let the dead bury the dead ' said Christ,
bearers of the body
walk crookedly with pseudo geist ;
poke the ash, poke fun at someone
as shadows fall upon the gnomon ;
see them creep their route -
the floral limousine that shouts
through the dull cluttered streets,
block the 'living daylights' out
as they bury Mr No one.... ...

Being reaches out from depth and for a span
all space and time accumulates to man,
though faith be what we may not see
being, cannot cease to be !... ... ...

(As left undone)

Test the sinews, yawning,
nimbus glares forbodingly,
seaward wind this morning
slants the rain away from me,
brolly, sprouting from the back-
grey blue sky with streaks of black,
the calves will get soaking wet
dripping down to soak the feet ; -
one thing that I always dread
looking out inside my head ;
tomorrow is another day -
draw back the curtains all the way !
No guilty footprints, dirty traces,
my boots are vacant, trail their laces -
keep Mrs Keepings in her place,
I see it, written in her face.... ... ...

Thinking of you all the time my dear -
and I'll find that old tree of yours,
where we use to dream of bygone days
on the old road to the moors,
and I'll drink again at the smuggler's arms
to the vows we made one another,
and I'll wait for your stage that never comes
through the creeping mist and the heather,
for still lies my heart on that old stony road
where I said I'd love you forever.... ... ....

APOPHATIC SAGE

God is something
but some - thing is not God.
God is as nothing
though no - thing is God.
God is the ultimate
limit of perception,
faith surely, is the love of this,
love of this mystery
which is the mystery of God:

Belief is to cleave
to what we preconceive,
having circumscribed the prize
it is that which we idolise!
Such deception may promise bliss
but God, will not, be this.... ... ...

NOSTALGIA
(Old England)

I remember a time when seven was old
and those hay - ricks were seen there, crossing the wold,
when a church door would open - never to lock
and hours were missed from not reading the clock,
with nodding horses and a Constable sky
and a watermill with a stream running by,
when days of summer seemed golden and long
now lost as a tune to an ancient song ;
much closer to me than that orbital pass
are all of these bygones, defying ‘ the glass ‘,
for what we have lost is like bread without leaven
or the lie of the land as a way to a heaven.... ... ...

CORN FIELD
(‘ In my beginning is my end ‘ T.S.Eliot )

One red poppy growing there
waving still - inside my head,
as if to say, ‘ now look at me,
for I am more than bread
and grow to make you think back
as I counterpoint the corn,
that you began to die here
on the day that you were born ‘ .... ... ...

Chrysalis against the stalk
as peristalsis how you try,
how I wonder where I walk
you become a butterfly,
find your flight, your Monarch sky
ignored by all that thunders by.
Toppled if you turn from this -
from this freeway you must go,
flutter down through an abyss
die en-route to Mexico ;
fragile thing without the sinew
multiply that you continue,
time was yours in many stratum
dazzle like a leaf in autumn :
Sometimes man can be like this,
death is metamorphosis.... ... ...

The darkness calls -
the drop inside of me appals
aphelion ! No oceans wrinkle,
no vacant moon or starlight twinkle,
my God, is God this -
this nothing, bliss.... ... ...

Tenant of a sheltered house
daydreams in a ' sleepy corner '
gliding through those ' windy straits '
with life's hand upon his shoulder ;
his time ebbing with the tide
folds his clothing tidily,
footprints covered by the sea ;
ageless as the cause of him -
gazing through the eye of one,
like a comet on it's way
burning brightly from the sun !